Electronic Arts today announced an agreement with Elevation Partners to acquire VG Holding, the owner of both Bioware and Pandemic Studios. Bioware and Pandemic have ten franchises under development, including six wholly owned games. Bioware is developing Mass Effect, which will be published by Microsoft in November, and is in the initial development stages of a multiplayer online game. Pandemic Studios is developing two open-world games — Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and Saboteur — in addition to several unannounced projects.

Pandemic and Bioware employ about 800 people across four studios located in Edmonton, Canada; Los Angeles; Austin; and Brisbane, Australia. Pandemic is led by Andrew Goldman, Josh Resnick and Greg Borrud. Bioware is led by Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka. These teams will join the EA Games Label run by Frank Gibeau, president of EA Games. EA will pay up to 620 million USD in cash to the stockholders of VG Holding and will issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain employees of VG Holding. EA will also assume outstanding VG Holding stock options. In addition, EA has agreed to lend VG Holding up to $35 million through the closing of the acquisition.

- David Laprad